Value Of Life: Ripley, And Mitch Albom

The Value of Life We may not ask ourselves what life means to us very often, but when death flashes before your eyes, that is when the true value of life because apparent to us. We are able to get a clearer image of life when we know or become more aware that we may not always have it. Life, is not about a mere calculation of everything you have ever earned or spend in your existence, but rather all the memories you made and experience you had that taught you about yourself. Everyone has a different point of view on how much the value of life means to them. Armstrong and Jenkins, Shakespeare, Ripley, and Mitch Albom have shown how much the value
of life means to them in different ways. The value of life for me is that life has no price tag, you have to learn how to overcome your obstacles, and enjoy every little moments is your life. In this article called, “What is a Life Worth?” Ripley mentions that the life has no price tag.
Amanda Ripley says, “The concept of assigning a price tag to a life has always made people intensely squeamish” (42). In this article Ripley talks about the attack that happened on 9/11. She is talking about the families that lost their love ones in this attack. One of the family member said that the government is putting a price tag on the ones that lost their lives in the attack, by giving money to their families. This person also says that the money that the government is giving them is not going to bring them back or make us stop feeling like they are not here. No matter how much money the government is going to give them it’s not going to bring back the life of their love ones. There never should be a price tag on someone’s
life. I think that the society assign value to human life by the choices you make.
The society makes famous people’s life more valued than others because they have done something for the community. These famous people have made the choices that made become famous. It all depends on the choices you make. If you have done something for the community that causes many good results than the society values your life more than others. It’s what you do that makes the society assign value to your life. Fame does not necessarily mean that your life is valuable it is what you did to receive that fame. A person who gave much to benefit others and became famous is a lot more valuable than someone like Kim Kardashian. For example, Lane Armstrong said, “I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour” (39). In this quote Armstrong is saying that he wants to live his life to fullest, even though he fought cancer he still doesn’t want to stop doing what he loves which is riding a bicycle, and wining Olympics medals. He just wants to live and enjoy his that when he dies people will remember him as one of the champions that did a lot of things for his country, and made everyone proud of
him.
Suffering and illness do impact how we should value life because it shows you that you don’t have a lot of time left to do everything you want. For example, in Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie says, “When you learn to die, you learn to live.” In this quote Morrie is trying to say that people don’t realize that they want to do a lot of things before they die. People get so busy with trying to make money that they don’t stop and think that money is not going to give them all of the happiness. They are so busy making their life so perfect that they don’t get time to enjoy it. Mr. Lenocker said that his wife had ALS, but she hated when people felt sorry for her. She wanted to enjoy every moment that she had left. So Mr. Lenocker did everything he could to make every moment special for his wife. Armstrong said, “When I was 25, I got testicular cancer and nearly died. I was given less than a 40 percent chance of surviving, and frankly, some of my doctors were just being kind when they gave me those odds” (40). Even though the doctors told Armstrong that he didn’t have lot chances of surviving, he still didn’t give up and he fought until the end and he survived the cancer. I have noticed that people realized that the value of life when they don’t have enough of it life.

Work Citied
Ripley, Amanda. “What is a Life Worth?” Time: 11 February 2002: 42. Print.
Armstrong, Lane, and Jenkins, Sally. It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. Print.
Lenocker, Durbin. Sanger High School. Mr. Howard’s class. 9 October 2012. Guest Lecture.
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie. Random House, 1997. Print.